


Beyond the White Wall

by DearTimekeeper



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Doomsday, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-28
Updated: 2016-10-28
Packaged: 2018-08-27 13:20:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8403196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DearTimekeeper/pseuds/DearTimekeeper
Summary: Introspection after the loss of Rose.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written in the very early hours of the morning.

A man said to the universe:  
“Sir, I exist!”  
“However,” replied the universe,  
“The fact has not created in me  
A sense of obligation.”

-Stephen Crane

 

She lingered like a ghost in the peripheral of his vision. A constant flash of light just out of reach. So he always looked straight ahead and pretended she had appeared just to the side. To soothe the ache in his hearts. To soothe the loneliness that flooded his being. He would catch himself sometimes, about to talk, about to tell her ghost all the things that he hadn’t been able to tell her when she had been there. Before he lost her. He let out a sigh in frustration and ran his hands through his already messy hair. He tugged on it and shut his eyes tight.

  
Her imaginary presence had been comforting at the start. She had been ripped away from him so suddenly that he had needed to slowly get used to not having her with him. She had been like a drug flooding his system and he was suffering from a painful withdrawal. But now she was everywhere he looked. Her eyes sad, as he imagined she would look if she saw the mess he had become.

  
“You’re not here!” he yelled out into the empty room. “You’re not,” he whispered, his anger quickly diminishing into anguish as he slid to the floor, leaning against the tardis console.

  
It really wasn’t fair. But then again the universe was never fair to him. It toyed with him, pulled the strings like a puppet master whenever it was bored. Perhaps it had seen how Rose had changed him, how she had subdued the harsh anger that had previously lingered just at the surface. Perhaps the universe wanted that anger back. The anger that caused him to act without thinking. Maybe the universe was bored and wanted him to be the man he had been before. The one to make rash decisions. The one that had caused his own world to burn.

  
Memories that had been subdued by Rose’s bright presence came flooding back. He saw people screaming, falling to the floor as they were shot down, regeneration after regeneration. He saw the monsters his own people became as days, centuries, passed, saw the war at its peak as cities crumbled. It was too much.

  
Darkness was quickly taking hold of him and he hated it. He hated the anger that burned deep inside him. It made him feel guilty. How had he become so dependent on the presence of one small human woman. But she wasn’t just anyone. She was Rose Tyler, so unique and special and so full of compassion.

  
She had been a flame, a bright light shining in the dark sky. She had led him out of a darkness he had thought would be eternal. Before her, what had he been? He remembered himself before the war, but that seemed like a flash of strangers rather than himself, like watching a movie and having a hazy memory of what transpired. And after the war, he had been empty. Not only had his head been empty of the constant noise he had been used to as a time lord, but he himself had nothing to live for. His constant adventuring was from a sense of duty rather than any real fervor. He was the only one left to heal the wounds caused by the war.  
But when he met her…when he first grabbed her hand he felt something, a whisper of a timeline full of warmth.

  
She had changed him and a part of him was angry at her as well. It was she who had changed him into the man he was now. One that was born from her love and had no idea what life without her was. While his previous incarnation had been born from loneliness, anger, and grief. His current body came about from a kiss. It was born with the image of Rose Tyler at his side, with the imprint of her lips on his.

  
He had reasoned with himself about his feeling for her, of course. After all, Timelords where taught from a young age to bury their emotions, to focus on logic as opposed to irresponsible impulses due to hormones.

  
He knew losing her would be painful, and he was right. But now he regretted never telling her how much she meant to him. He regretted not being as close to her as he could have been. What he feared the most was that she would doubt what he felt for her. Humans often needed to be told. But she had to know. She had to realize that he was nothing without her. She had to know that he…that she was everything good in the world wrapped into one brilliant pink and yellow human. She had to know that he’d do more than burn up a sun for her. But he couldn’t destroy two universes, no matter how tempted he was.

  
He missed her. And as the tardis dimmed the lights all around him in mourning for his loss and hers, after all she had grown fond of Rose, he realized that he may never feel the happiness he had gotten while with her, at least not in this body, the one that ached for her hand in his and her warmth seeping through his chest from her hugs. He missed her, and he knew that would never go away.

  
The universe must be laughing at him now. The all mighty time lord diminished to a sobbing mess without an ephemeral human girl. But what did the universe know about love? What did something that constantly expanded and would end in an empty ice, cold wasteland know about the warmth one felt from the smile of the woman he loved.

  
The universe was cruel and he was at its mercy, but he wouldn’t let it take away the memory of Rose Tyler. He wouldn’t let it be tainted by the pain the universe constantly put him through. He’d remember her, as he did with all he lost, but he’d keep going for her. Because she would want him to win. It had been them against the universe and they had lost. It had torn them apart, but now it was him against the universe and he would continue the battle for as long as he could…for her.


End file.
